


the courage of stars

by eg1701



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Good Parent Maryse Lightwood, Grief/Mourning, I'm Sorry, M/M, Madzie is a Lightwood-Bane, Past Character Death, Why Did I Write This?, why do i keep killing off people?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 15:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12111843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eg1701/pseuds/eg1701
Summary: In which the head of the New York institute wears white.





	the courage of stars

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from he song saturn by sleeping at last which is really a beautiful song if you've never heard it before

Visitors to the New York Institute were often taken aback at their first glimpse of the head. Not because he was so young, or because of how serious he looked, or even by the three children who could often be seen near his feet or off to his side. No, what took them by surprise was the fact that he wore white.  


It was very common knowledge that white was the color of mourning. It was even in their children's rhyme- “For death and mourning the color’s white.” When a Shadowhunter wore white, it was assumed that they were grieving.  


This was not accident either, they could tell that much. It wasn’t as if he wore something that had white in it and spent the whole day embarrassed whenever someone offered condolences. Most tried to avoid that, but things happened. No, this was very obviously deliberate. His entire shirt was white, which very much stood out amongst the sea of black and grey. And when he went out on missions, or met with envoys, he often wore a white band, like the Mundanes used to do when they mourned.  


People didn’t talk about it. Visitors didn’t ask, and residents didn’t offer up information. Mourning was such a private thing, It would be rude to discuss it behind his back, when even those who may not have agreed with Alec’s relationships could. Those that knew Alec understood that while he may have come to terms with the events, he would continue to mourn the rest of his life. 

They understood that he might wear white for the rest of his life.  


After all, when Shadowhunters fall in love, they do so forever. Alec had admitted to Jace that he wasn’t even particularly interested in looking at anyone else and that he never would be.  


Jace had frowned, but completely understood. If Clary had been taken from him, so violently, before they’d even gotten married and really lived in love, he doubted he’d ever move on either. How does one move on from that? Considering it all, people should have been amazed Alec showed up to work everyday, and didn’t take up a new identity, take his family, and just disappear. How did he exist with the constant reminders of what he desperately wanted and could never have?  


So Jace drew the mourning rune on his brother, on the back of his hand, the spot traditionally reserved for the marriage rune. He wanted to do something, to give some tangible offering of support. They could hug Alec and tell him over and over it would be alright, but would it? The man Alec had loved so deeply- and Jace had felt that love- was gone and no funeral or saying or moment of silence was going to change that.  


Jace hadn’t drawn it there on purpose, and when they realized, Alec made a sort of choked noise and managed to thank Jace and it sounded as if he was working very hard not to sob.  
“I’m so sorry,” Jace had said. He wanted to say a lot more, but it was all he could think of to say. He was sorry for everything.  
“It’s not like anything else was going to go there,” Alec had reasoned, looking over his new rune. He flexed his hand and the light just briefly caught the ring that adorned his left ring finger. Shadowhunters didn’t wear wedding bands or engagement rings, but Jace could tell that Alec was so relieved he had decided not to uphold that tradition.  
Jace felt the pure anguish radiating from his brother, and he was so desperate to help. Alec was so tired, the kind of tired that went right to your bones, and Jace couldn’t do anything but let Alec sob into his shoulder and say everything would work out somehow.  


It was a lie, everyone who said it was lying to him, but Alec knew Jace couldn’t say much else, and so he didn’t reply. He was too tired to reply.

Despite all of the tragedy, Alec remained a damn good leader. It may have been that he simply threw himself into his work as both the Institute’s head and a now single father to three children. If he kept busy enough, it was easier to keep his mind occupied. If he was exhausted at the end of the day, the nightmares tended to stay away. And he had worked so hard to get to where he was. Nothing was going to take it from him.  


Time passed. Sometimes slowly, hours dragging and days bleeding into each other. Sometimes quickly- children aged and months flew by faster than Alec could follow.  
The New York Institute thrived. Relations with the Downworld were at an all time high, while demon attacks were at an all time low. The three children Alec had fretted over and held through nightmares were growing and becoming powerful in their own right. Alec hadn’t known too much about raising warlock children, but he’d be damned if anyone else did it, and Catarina and Tessa had been instrumental in helping him.  


He’d be forever grateful that Magnus’s friends loved him just as much even in death as they had in life. Cat had moved in for a few months, completely of her own volition and Alec hadn’t asked her to leave. In fact, he told her to stay as long as she liked. He wasn’t sure he’d have been able to raise three kids for those first six months or so without that help. Warlock children were quite unlike Shadowhunter children, he’d discovered, and he knew he couldn’t handle a baby with unrestrained magic if there hadn’t been any adults warlocks.  


Maryse had returned from Idris the moment the news had reached her, and she stopped leaving New York so frequently afterwards. Alec thought about how quickly she’d returned sometimes and he was very grateful to her. He wasn’t sure that she’d have done it when he was younger. She’d changed so much recently. They all had.  


They’d sat down, mother and son, and Alec had sort of expected her to give him a lecture about how this sort of thing happened in their world, and he could mourn, but one day, he’d need to move on. He hadn’t prepared himself for it, but he expected it. She’d say it and he would take it.  
Instead, she took his shaking hands, and, with just a hint of tears in her eyes, let him tell her the story. He had spoken very softly and it seemed as if this was the first time he’d spoken in weeks without crying. His voice sounded like it hadn’t been used in years.  


“Sweetheart, I am so sorry,” she replied, her voice on the verge of cracking, “I know how much you loved him.”  


“I-”  


And for the first time in what seemed like forever, Maryse pulled her son into a very, very tight embrace and said, “Be sad. Cry and be sad and don’t ever stop being sad if you don’t want to. It hurts baby. I know it does.”  


“It should have been me,” Alec whispered, “I would give anything for it to be me.”  


Maryse hurt when she heard him say this. She had a flash of a memory of Alec up on the balcony, many years ago and in this memory, he disappeared for a moment over the ledge before Magnus brought him back. She’d had dreams about that for months after.  


“Magnus wouldn’t like to hear that,” she said, “Because you know if his dying saved you, he’d do it a thousand times over.”  


Alec nodded, “I know.”  


“One day you’ll wake up and the open wound will have started to scab,” she said, “And the scab will scar and though you won’t be the same- let’s not pretend here- you’ll be able to function again. Scars don’t impede you as much as open wounds.”  


Once his head was clearer and his hurt wasn’t so prominent, Alec would think about how out of character that had seemed for his mother, but he’d never ask her about it, because it was exactly what he had needed her to do. He needed a mother to tell him it was alright and to hold him and to tell him that it was perfectly fine to cry. She was right. The wound had started to heal and while Alec still held the scar, it didn’t bleed anymore, and the hurt was more of a dull ache. It was like an old injury that sometimes flared up for seemingly no reason.  


Alec wondered if his father’s unfaithfulness was like a scar on his mother’s heart.  


Maryse was right. Slowly but surely, Alec started smiling again. He laughed with Jace and Izzy and helped his kids with their studies and the pain wasn’t so raw. But he didn’t stop wearing white and no one suggested he do so because if you asked him if he was mourning he’d say yes. 

He had said once that Shadowhunters were taught to control their emotions. That they were a distraction. Alec saw now how foolish he’d been. Emotions kept them grounded. Reminded them that they were human too. Because Alec had felt love, and now he had felt lasting devastation. He used to think Jace’s brief death was the worst pain he’d ever face, but then Jace had come back and he hoped to never experience pain like that for any extended period of time.  


He wasn’t so lucky.  


But he’d been made better because of it. Love had taught him to trust his instincts because he was clever. He understood politics and was smart enough to see things from the other side. Magnus used to say he’d never met a brighter head of an Institute and Alec would blush and say he was a little biased.  


Devastation had taught him that things could change in the blink of an eye. He told his family I love you more often. He let Shadowhunters know when he was proud of them, told them when they did well, and tried to help when something went wrong.  


As much as he missed Magnus, and as much as he sometimes wanted to spend the days in bed and not speak to anyone, he understood that he was put on this earth to lead and by the Angel he was going to do so.  


Maybe the Angel would be thankful for all he’d done and one day he’d get to see Magnus again. He knew however, that Magnus would cross his arms and frown if Alec got himself killed too soon, and so even on those less and less frequent days where the effort to keep himself from getting bitten by a demon or killed by a rouge vampire was too much, he did it. Maybe sometimes you have to live for others, even if those others have already gone.  


Because a year or so into his grief, he realized that he was living for others, and while he knew on some level this maybe wasn’t the best coping mechanism, it was keeping him going and it was getting him out of bed and the scar wasn’t reopening. If it was working, he wouldn’t question it. Not now anyway. Alec had once told Magnus he couldn’t live without him. Magnus was immortal- he never expected to have to.  


And so Alec would live for his three children who couldn’t lose another parent. He’d live for his brothers and his sister, and the long nights they sometimes shared, where they’d share a bottle of wine and joke about some uptight Clave envoy. He’d live for his mother’s newfound kindness, and the people who depended on him to lead. He’d live for the memory of someone who loved him more than he ever thought possible.  


And maybe, many years from now, he’d learn to live for himself again. Really learn to live without Magnus. He’d be brave because Magnus would want him to be brave. Alec liked to think that as a Shadowhunter he’d always had courage, but the truth was that until he met Magnus he didn’t know what real courage was. He’d have never left his own bride at the altar, never have spoken back to the Inquisitor or threatened Victor Aldertree in front of the entire Institute. There’s so many thing he’d never have had the guts to do if Magnus hadn’t sauntered into his life.  


He wasn’t going to waste those lessons now.  


Maybe, though he thought it unlikely, but maybe one day the head of the New York Institute wouldn't wear white.


End file.
